Experience

As we approach the nominating process for cabinet members I am reminded of a personal experience. I was sent to Georgia to manage a poultry processing plant and I got all the supervisors together for a meeting. I told them that I had never seen a live chicken up close and that was OK because I was depending on them to run the plant and my job was to get them the time, training and tools they needed to do their job. In a short time I picked up a lot of information about the business and received good cooperation from everyone. There are many examples of people going into positions of authority without intimate knowledge of the business because the skills needed are more administrative and oriented toward getting people to work with one another for a common purpose. Being new to the business has the additional advantage of seeing things in a new way, the old forest for the trees idea.

Looking back

When President Obama visited Japan and when Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbor they both emphasized the importance of looking forward and not dwelling on the mistakes of the past. This is a good strategy and helps to heal and to bring people together with common goals. Most Americans would like to see our country have better race relations but when the subject comes up the conversation always seems to look back at what went wrong. Everyone is aware that the Japanese strike on Pearl was a knife in the heart of America and the use of nukes pierced the hearts of the Japanese but rehashing these events does not help going forward. Everyone is aware that the mistreatment of blacks from slavery including the hundred years after the civil war is a dark spot in American history but it behooves us to put the past behind us and try and create a brighter future for all of our citizens. It works on a personal basis as well. If you keep reminding yourself of some past hurt it makes it all the more difficult to get over. It breeds resentment and being resentful is like taking poison and expecting someone else to get sick.

News cycle

In my ongoing analysis of the transfer of power, I believe that Obama has taken a page from the Trump book. While Obama was vacationing in Hawaii he watched the news cycle spin around Trumps every tweet and decided to get back into the game using the news media’s penchant to always need a new bauble. He first orchestrated the UN vote on Israeli settlements and that got the ball rolling for a few days and next he sent some Russian spies home and that will carry the news for another few days. The sending of these spies home is a good illustration of how easy it is to get the press off and running. The question every hour on the news is, how will Trump react to these actions against the Russians. They seem to think he will set aside his plans for infrastructure, for tax reform, for changes in Obamacare, for changes in NAFTA, for dealing with ISIS and immigration so he can deal with this issue. Not! While these agenda items are far more important they are considered old news that is too complicated to gather headlines, and this will hold until the next bauble comes along and they will once again jump on the band wagon. This kind of reporting has been going on since the 24 hour cable news cycle started and will continue. Remember the good old days when Walter Cronkite was on from 6 to 6:15 with the nightly news and that satisfied most people.

Right of return

The current population of Israel is 8 million and 20% or 1.6 million are Palestinian Arabs. They have the same rights as Israelis and there are Arab members in the Jewish congress. In Israel unlike many Muslim countries, women have equal rights and there are over 400 Mosque in Israel. I bring this up at this time because of something called right of return. In 1948 when it was clear that the State of Israel was going to be a reality, there were about 700,000 Palestinians living in the area and they knew that war would break out so they left and at the same time about the same number of Jews living nearby moved into the area that would become Israel. Those Palestinians who left later declared the right of return meaning that they and their descendants had the right to be Israeli citizens and claim their property. By this time their numbers had grown so they would actually outnumber the Jews and if they were allowed to return they could take over the country at the next election. The Jews denied this right but it was kept as a bargaining chip by the Palestinians but over the years it has just disappeared and no one talks about it anymore.

Revenge

Most people understand that any administration can deal with multiple issues simultaneously and most would agree that it is important to prioritize the various items on the agenda and thus the surprise at Secretary Kerry’s one hour and ten minute speech on the Israeli settlements. Would this emphasis be better placed on things like ISIS, the massacre at Aleppo, the Russian intervention in Ukraine, worldwide terrorism, or China’s incursions in the South China Sea. This opens the door to conspiratorial types who see this as slam against the Israeli leader Netanyahu. This is a speech that could have been given anytime in the past 8 years so why now? I am not sure what is going on but I am hard pressed to believe that the President of the United States would carry out a revengeful act because he is upset with the way Netanyahu behaved when he accepted an invitation to speak before a joint session of congress. As President Obama in prone to say, we are better than this.

Upset

Most of the post-election analyses have been about a few items that when added together would have caused a different outcome. The Comey letter, the Podesta hacks, the private email, not going to Wisconsin, and racism but Hilary gave the most obvious reason before the election when she said, Hillary Clinton asked why she "isn't 50 points ahead" of Donald Trump in presidential election polling, when she appeared in a video conference, The Washington Post reports. Using a sports analogy, if you are on the road against a superior team and you can hang in there until the fourth quarter, you got a chance. This game should have been tucked away in the first half but wasn’t and that is the stuff of which upsets are made.

Poor people

One of my friends asked me what I thought about Trump’s tax plan and how it would effect low income working people. When the tax rates are lowered most people will pay less tax but for those who don’t pay tax the rate has no bearing so what happens to the 50% of people who pay zero income tax. There are two existing programs that help these people. The first is called earned income credit. This program sends money to low income people who work and have children. It can be a significant amount depending on income. If the family income is $50,000 and they have three children they will receive $6,000 net from the government even though they pay no income tax. These payments will remain unchanged. The child tax credit will be increased from $1,000 per child to $5,000 per child and other things being equal this is a large benefit to low income people who currently pay no income tax.

Legacy

As the country faces the end of Obama’s time the subject of his legacy is in the news. I think his legacy will be in two parts. The first will be short term and second more long range. To start with he will be remembered as he is now as a nice guy. He is physically attractive, personable, with lots of charisma, a good family man and a great public speaker. In short he is likeable and that is a big deal for many people. He had 8 years in office during which time there were no scandals. He is and will continue to be the leading figure in the party. As time passes and historians begin to examine his time in office they will move away from his personal likeability and look more closely at his record and it will be mixed but with more negatives than positives. While his signature achievement, Obamacare will be significantly changed the elimination of pre-existing conditions will remain and this is how he will be remembered, so that is a positive. The disintegration of the Democratic Party during his time will be his biggest negative on domestic policy and Syria will be the big problem in foreign policy. He is leaving the country in better shape economically than when he was elected but it took almost 8 years to achieve which is a positive but the blue collar people who were left behind is a negative. He came in with great fanfare, the darling of the national press, promising to unite the country with his campaign slogan of hope and change which is a positive but failed to convince the Republican congress to work with him and the country became more divided. He attempted to reach out to the Middle East and Europe and got a Nobel Peace prize for his efforts but the Middle East blew up starting with the Arab spring and Europe is overwhelmed with refugees. Some will say the fail to leave some troops in Iraq caused the birth of ISIS but others will say that was just the final result of the Iraq war. He tried a restart with Russia and ended up with Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine. He made a friend of Castro and an enemy of Netanyahu.

Compromise

Speculation about how Trump will lead is the latest parlor game and I am all in. One of the main reasons for grid lock in government is the fact that party beats country. Neither party wants the other party to get credit for any success. If the White House comes up with a plan that can help the country the other party is against it and the reverse is true. With Trump we have a man who is totally pragmatic that is he will go in whatever direction is needed to accomplish his objective. This means you can expect him to be very friendly with Chuck Schumer. Soon the Democrats will get over their loss and wake up to the fact that they have the best possible Republican president they could ask for. Trump has never talked about budget cuts, said he was going to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, has promised to rebuild the infrastructure and for the union guys he wants to pull the teeth from NAFTA and the TPP is DOA. Trump has put conservatives in his cabinet to satisfy his base but his policies will be more to the center. When it comes to passing his agenda, Trump will not need the far right because he will have help from the left. There will be a lot of bi-partisanship in the passage of his proposals. One of the first big tests will be the infrastructure spending and that will be followed by tax reform. The first he needs Republicans to compromise and the second he needs Democrats to compromise. These first two challenges will require the art of the deal.

Climate now

Because energy has become so politicized there are frequent reports about the advancements in non-fossil fuel alternatives mostly wind and solar. By just reading these reports it would seem that we are on the way to a new world. Just to remind everyone where we stand, here are some recent stats. Oil 35.43% Coal 28.15% Natural Gas 23.46% Hydro –electric 6.27% Nuke-electric 5.79% Geothermal Wind, Solar Biomass .86% About half of that last category is wind and solar. If you take away the subsidies from the last category it would disappear completely. If we are really concerned about climate change and not just influenced by political beliefs we will move quickly to replace coal and oil with natural gas.

Settlements

The United Nations has a well-earned reputation of being anti-Israeli and the United States, as one of the five permanent members, has regularly used its veto power to save Israel. Yesterday, the United States abstained from voting instead of using the veto and the United Nations declared that the building of settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Powers said the settlements were detrimental to the creation of a two state agreement between Israel and Palestine and this agreement is the only way to resolve the long standing difference between these two countries. While these settlements are one of many reasons why an agreement cannot be reached there are other reasons and one of the most important is the fact that Palestine refuses to admit that Israel exists. It is not possible for two countries to agree on territory when one country states in its constitution that the other country is not there. There is literally no one to agree with if there is only one party to the agreement. Israel states that according the 1967 agreement reached after the end of the 67 war, the territory known as the West Bank was to be negotiated as part of the peace agreement. The United Nations says that when the war ended the West Bank was no longer negotiable and thus the argument remains. According to the United Nations the building of settlements has been illegal since 1967. This new vote will have little to no effect on Israel as it will continue to build as it has over the past 50 years. Some day in the future when Palestine agrees to the existence of Israel they may use these settlement, to bargain for new territorial boundaries.

Educated

In the halls of the intellectual elites there exist a mass of people who are, euphemistically referred to, as the great uniformed. Indeed polls show that many people interviewed on the street are not well educated in the matters of government. However, a large part of that group does watch cable TV news and they are fairly well informed. It is interesting that Fox News which tends to be conservative has more viewers than the liberal stations of CNN and MSNBC combined. Fox News is so popular that it not only leads in news cable stations but all cable stations which include various entertainment channels. Gallop shows that twice as many Americans identify as conservative verses liberal. This closely aligns with the 70% who are not college graduates. This formal education divide keeps cropping up in different ways. This is a difference I was not aware of until the past election brought it to the forefront.

Mideast strategy

Trump strikes again! Egypt was about to propose that the UN stop Israeli settlements and Obama said the US would abstain from the vote which means it would pass and it would take away a critical negotiating point from the Israelis’. Trump intervened with the Egyptian President and convinced him to withdraw the proposal. Trump has now cemented his relationship with Netanyahu. Trump has selected Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state. Tillerson is an oil man and close friend to the Gulf oil states and has demonstrated to them that he is no friend of the Iranians. Is Trump trying to replace the evil Israel with the evil Iran in the eyes of the Arab world leaders and thus lead to a two state agreement between Israel and Palestine. While the Arab world is no friend of Israel can Trump use the age old division between Sunni and Shia to move the Sunnis toward an agreement with the Jews.

Nukes

When Reagan took office, one of his first announcements was his intent to vastly increase spending on the military. His well-known words of peace through strength became a mantra for his administration. This was followed up with his ideas about nuclear defense which the press promptly ridiculed as star wars. I have always believed that this strategy is what forced Gorbachev to realize that the USSR could not compete with the US on the military stage and led him to his concept of perestroika which meant to concentrate on the economy instead of defense. It was after the fall of the Soviet Union that it was discovered that the Soviets were two generations behind in technology and this explained why they were always opposed to mutual inspections of nuclear sites. I bring this up at this time because of an announcement by Trump today regarding our nuclear arsenal. He said we are going to update both our offensive and defensive capabilities so that no one would consider an attack knowing that their missals would be destroyed before they could reach us and our missals would destroy them. Imagine the look on Putin’s face today when he heard that. Putin knows that Russia has oil, natural gas and obsolete nukes but their economy is in shambles. Trump has been making nice with him and then drops this bomb. Trump is following the Reagan idea of overwhelming the enemy with strength. I am waiting for the press to figure this out which I believe will take a while. Even Krauthammer who is very wise asked today why Trump just didn’t focus on defense. Trump is putting Putin on notice that his nukes will no longer be an effective deterrent. Next he will talk about shipping natural gas to Europe and they will stop buying from Russia.

Trust

Trust in the media has been on a downward slide since the 72% high point in 1976. By the 90’s it was in the mid 50’s and by 2005 it was in the low 40’s and now it has slipped below 40. A similar trend can be seen with trust in government going from 40% down to 15%. One reason for this that is not often discussed it the 24 news networks. They have to keep coming up with “Special Alerts” at the start of every show and thus they just jump from one story to the next. Something that is a big deal today is old news a week later. Recall the report about how veterans were dying while waiting for treatment. That is still happening but it is old news. Trump has taken advantage of this news cycle. He knows that people have lost trust in both news and government so he sends out a tweet and the news media jumps all over it for a few days and then he sends out another. They go especially wild if the tweet is not true but people so believe that much in the news is not true they don’t get excited. In a few days the press realizes that this is not a story and they go after the new shinny tweet bait

Work

I was watching a morning news show and the lady hostess said she was the daughter of former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. This got my attention because I knew that her grandfather John Huntsman Sr. was a self-made billionaire. He was raised dirt poor by a loving mother in a dysfunction home where his father was an alcoholic. Starting with nothing he built a chemical company from scratch and is today a wealthy man. He has set a goal to give away all of his money before he dies. He has given money to needy people around the world but his number one project is a large cancer research hospital he built in his home state of Utah. To keep in running costs him out of pocket 120 million dollars per year. He is my age and has suffered a number of times from cancer and his mother died of cancer. His son Jon Jr. has spent most of his life in public service working for various politicians including Reagan and was elected governor of Utah for two terms. Jr’s daughter is a TV talking head and his son is a naval pilot currently serving on a carrier. John Sr. has very expensive home that he is selling at below cost to give the money away. He is often criticized because many of the products his company makes and not good for the environment. For example the makes Styrofoam containers used in things like egg cartons. The reason I was interested is that his grandchildren, who could be living a life of leisure are out making careers for themselves. I think one of the finest gifts a grandfather can give is to pass on the work ethic and the Huntsman’s seem to have done that.

Never again

In 1999 in the African country of Uganda an estimated 800,000 people were massacred mostly by chopping them to pieces using machetes and the west stood by and watched. After that the familiar cry of never again resounded across American so in 2011 two women in the Obama administration, Susan Rice and Samantha Powers convinced the President to invade Libya. Seeing that Gadhafi was about to invade the city of Benghazi and kill civilians these women recalling Uganda came up with a policy called, “Responsibility to Protect” and with the help of Hilary Clinton convinced Obama to invade Libya. A short time later a similar situation arose in Syria and the President said Assad must go but nothing happened. Next the President said that if chemicals were used the US would take action and nothing happened. The last four years the west once again watched as innocents were killed by Assad’s military. The cry of never again has taken on a rather hollow meaning.

CO2 emissions

This past summer the US began shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe. Until recently the only LNG shipping point was in the Gulf but plans for more plants along the east coast are underway. This will not only be a new market for US products but will compete against Russia. In addition it will allow Europe to reduce CO2 emissions the way the US has done by replacing coal plants with natural gas. The new administration will likely speed up this process! Despite continued economic growth, emissions in the U.S. are on a steady decline thanks in large part to cheap natural gas. The next move is to ship to Asia and Africa, places that are big users of coal.

CIA

Many people have come to the defense of the CIA saying the agency is filled with life time civil servants who are dedicated to defending the country. Trump has said that politics is interfering with their analysis and many say his disparaging remarks are not helpful. Just a few years ago Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee said something similar. Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday morning accused the CIA of violating federal law, detailing how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee. These represent two examples of people, one from each party, accusing the CIA of misdeeds. Does this mean that politics had contaminated the CIA?

Tolerance

While many liberals are looking around for reasons why the election did not go their way, some are getting past their bias and discovering different sides to issues. These are the people who see the loss of the Middle American non-college educated voter as the reason for the loss. The intolerance shown to this group has opened their eyes to a new view of things. Uber liberal Nick Kristof of the NY Times said in his Sunday article: We champion tolerance, except for conservatives and evangelical Christians. We want to be inclusive of people who don’t look like us — so long as they think like us. If the liberals realize this they will be on the long journey back to getting those voters they called names to come back to their party. Kristof’s article covers a lot more and is worth the read! http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/sunday/the-dangers-of-echo-chambers-on-campus.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

Art of the Deal

Since Trump is an out of the box type politician many seasoned reporters are having a difficult time trying to figure him out. I have a suggestion and that is to consider his art of the deal approach. Trump expressed concern about Obama notifying the enemy of troop movements. Things like saying we will put so many troops in on such date and remove so many on another date. Trump likes to negotiate much like a union does with a company. The company says we can only give you a cost of living raise of 2% and the union asks for 10% hoping to end up with 4%. When Trump says he will place an import tax of 35% he is negotiating but the press takes it as gospel. When he says he will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it he is negotiating. Talking with the President of Taiwan is the set up to negotiate with China on other matters. With great surprise reporters will ask if he is saying one thing when he means another and the answer is yes. Most people know that what is said during a campaign is often different from what happens after the election. Anyone who has ever been involved in a negotiation understands that the starting point is not where things end up. Most understand that in the bargaining stage some secrecy is necessary but when the final product emerges there needs to be openness. Many in the press are amazed at the openness Trump has exhibited with has cabinet picks. Some even complain that it is too open saying he should not be tweeting about every interview. Once again this is out of the box stuff that is just too much for experienced political reporters.

Flag

The subject of flag burning is once more in the news. The court ruled in 1989 on a five to four decision that flag burning was legal because it was free speech. It is interesting that a conservative Scalia voted in favor of flag burning and liberal Stevens voted against. There will be a new court in just a few years and they may have a different opinion. Polls show that 56% favor a law forbidding flag burning but this is down from 70% in 1990 shortly after the last court ruling. While the judges are not supposed to be influenced by public opinion, in cases where there is no loss of human rights they sometimes listen to the citizens.

Student scores

Half way through the last election it dawned on me that there was a split between the 30% of people who are college graduates and the 70% who are not. A friend sent me the following: The divide is economic, and it is massive. According to the Brookings analysis, the fewer-than-500 counties (16% of U.S. counties) that Clinton won nationwide combined to generate 64% of U.S. economic activity in 2015. The more-than-2,600 counties (84% of U.S. counties) that Trump won combined to generate 36% of the country’s economic activity last year. I might add that it is the 30% who are concerned about climate change and that make sense.

Student scores

I just finished watching a segment about education and comparing the United States with other countries and the US ranks 17th in science and 24th in math. The US ranks 5thin spending per student. Experts offer many reasons for this and to me it is all very confusing. In my four years as a sub teacher I have come up with some observations. High schools have sacrificed learning in order to improve graduation rates. The district has an excellent math program as I have subbed in all math classes from 6th through 12th. If a student gets behind then the problem is compounded because each year depends on the content in the years before. The result is by freshman algebra, which is a required course, there are 6 to 8 students in most classes that have no idea what is going on. They are then sent to some remedial classes and if they show up every day they are allowed to take a math proficiency test and they must either pass it or flunk it twice and then they are allowed to graduate. While these students are in the classroom they are bored and soon start distracting the teacher and other students. The teacher spends an inordinate amount of time trying to keep these students from disrupting the class. This is time not spent in helping students who want to learn. Every effort is made to keep these students in school. There are special rooms they can be sent to where there is more one on one instruction but basically it gets them out of the regular class so the teacher can teach. There are two main reasons for this procedure. First each student brings in $13,000 to the school so expulsion is a no no. Second statistics show that if you can keep a student in school until age 18 the chances of him ending up in prison are greatly reduced. Since $13,000 is far less than the $30,000 cost for prison this is considered a good investment. If I had to name the number one problem, I would say it is students who do not learn respect for authority in the home and thus it carries over to the school and later to the job and too many times to the police officer on the street.

Russian relations

There is a brouhaha going on about Trump’s relationship with Russia but when the Obama administration proposed having better relations with Russia it was seen as a progressive move. Here are a couple of examples people may have forgotten about. In March 2009 Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama Administration was going to push the reset button with the Russians. Obama caught off guard when through an open mike he whispers to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that relationships will improve after his re-election.

Loyal opposition

There is an old joke something like this, don’t worry I’m from the government and I am here to help. That should strike fear into the hearts of all free people. Republicans who are complaining about the way the press is treating Trump should rejoice in the fact that they are doing their job. Double checking everything elected officials do is the way to protect our way of life. Citizens should also want the out party to check on the party in power and investigate whenever necessary. This idea comes from the British Parliament and is called the loyal opposition. If these officials don’t like the close scrutiny then they can always resign but as a taxpayer I want to know what’s going on in the back room.

Sanctuary cities

According to recent court rulings states are not required to enforce federal laws but they cannot impede federal authorities from enforcing the laws. In the famous case of Marbury v. Madison the Supreme Court stated: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” In other words federal law takes precedent over state law. Sanctuary Cities have legally chosen not to prosecute illegal aliens but they may not interfere with the federal government prosecuting these aliens. They have the right not to help the federal government track down illegal aliens but the federal government can then withhold federal funds allocated to law enforcement. Most big cities are controlled by democrats and threatening to take away federal money will get their attention. This is not always the case with republicans as witnessed by the 36 states who refused federal subsidies by not setting up insurance exchanges under Obamacare.

Coal miner pension

In the news today is a story about retired coal miners who are losing their promised health care benefits. This is happening across the county, not only to health care but to pensions as well. Illinois is a case in point with both their public employee plan and the teacher retirement plan. When the state threatened to reduce benefits union leaders pointed out that the state constitution forbids any reduction in legacy benefits, (benefits for retirees). The state went to the federal government for help and in 2014 a new law was passed which allowed pension managers to override the state constitution and now these retirees benefits are in jeopardy. These unions, which includes cities, counties and states negotiated in good faith and now after many years the agreements are being changed. How did this happen! In the Minneapolis School District there are 3,300 teachers and 6,700 support staff. 1,500 of the support staff are members of the teachers union. If the teachers select a candidate who will negotiate contracts that are favorable to teachers and then work to get them elected, they have a very good chance of winning. If each teacher and spouse vote for a particular candidate that is 9000 votes. Now if they get their parents to vote that is another 18,000. Next if they have coffee parties and invite the neighbors plus make a small campaign contribution they can just about guarantee a win for their candidate. The winners usually get 60,000 votes. The proof of this is that No DFL-endorsed candidate for the board has lost in at least 20 years. This union followed the rules and their candidates won and then they sat down across the table to negotiate with the people they just helped get elected and promised they would get them re-elected. The school board said they did not have a lot of money to offer but they could increase the legacy benefits and the teachers agreed. Many years later when it came time to pay the piper the money was not there. This was the reason why a strong liberal like FDR warned against public unions. This happened across the country with city workers, county worker, state workers, teachers and even federal workers under civil service.

Jobs and growth

Trumps great contribution to the Republican Party is putting social issues like abortion and gay marriage on the back burner. Harry Reeds contribution is the 51 votes needed to approve cabinet nominees, the so called nuclear option. While Trump is a moderate on social issues, his cabinet indicates that he is conservative on fiscal issues. He is not a micromanager so he will likely follow the lead of his appointees. He recognizes that climate change is aggravated by fossil fuels but knows that you cannot change over to wind and solar but must move to natural gas and then look for other ways. He knows that the EPA has gone too far and must be reined in. He knows that tax rates must be lowered and you can’t touch Medicare and social security. He knows the way to attack the deficit is not by raising taxes and/or cutting spending but by growing the economy. When people and companies can keep more of their money, people will spend and companies will grow. Companies will bring home the profits they have stored overseas and with reduced regulations will expand and use innovation to develop new products. Looming on the horizon will be higher interest rates and thanks to Bush 43 and Obama the 20 trillion dollar debt will pose a big problem. Once again it will be economic growth that will come to the rescue. It all comes down to good paying jobs.

WW 3

Shortly after Reagan took office he referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire and all hell broke loose. The national press and leading democrats immediately predicted WW 3. Yesterday Trump got a congratulatory phone call from the President of Taiwan and once again cries of WW 3 came forth only this time things are exaggerated because of social media.

Mistakes

Shortly after 9-11, I went to a Muslim chat room and continued going there 3 or 4 times per week for over ten years. The others in the room expected me to defend the United States on every issue and I surprised them when I did not. I told them that during the cold war the US made friends with a lot of bad people. Our rule was that if you oppose the USSR then you are acceptable. I recall when Mrs. Kirkpatrick, our ambassador to the UN, said of one of the bad guys,” he may be a dictator but he is our dictator”. I willingly admitted that the US has made many mistakes and we are still paying the price for those in the view of world opinion. I also pointed out the many positive things that the US has accomplished. I bring this up at this time because I found similar thinking when it comes to the presidential candidate for whom people voted. They often feel obligated to defend everything the candidate did and said. People should understand that it would be next to impossible to find a candidate who did and said everything they wanted and when something is not right in their opinion they should just say so.

Party over country

Over the years my cynicism about politics has grown and one of the main reasons was that politicians tend to put party above country. No matter who is in the White House the opposition does not want the country to have any successes because the credit will go to the President. The Republicans have opposed Obama on a regular basis and they have been rewarded with big off year election victories. As the Democrats view this will they follow the same approach hoping to win in the off years or will they put the country first and allow Trump to receive the credit for any successes. One of the first indications of which way they will go, will be how they vote on Trump’s desire to spend money on infrastructure. This is something the Democrats have wanted and now they will get the opportunity to help implement.

Real cost

When the federal government brings on a new social program they underestimate the cost to get the bill passed and once people start receiving the benefits it is almost impossible to stop it. The one exception to this was the Medicare Catastrophic –Coverage Law passed in 1989 and repealed a few months later. This plan would pay for additional benefits for seniors including nursing home cost. The plan passed with great fanfare but soon seniors found out they were going to pay for this new plan with a sur-tax of over $1,000 per year. They rose up with such force that the law was trashed. The house voted 360 to 66 to junk it and the senate voted the same 99 to 0. The other plans like social security, Medicare and Medicaid remained as law because they were paid for by the general public or more correctly by deficit financing. While most see this as Democratic politics the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan was passed by Bush 43. The agreement was that it would not cost more than 400 billion over ten years and if it did it could be stopped by any congressman using a procedure called, “point of order”. The chief actuary figured the cost at $530 billion but this fact was hidden until the bill passed and was only revealed two months after Bush was re-elected. The latest addition to this list of benefits is Obamacare and that too is costing a lot more than the projections. So what’s new!